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Earth Gets Its Price For What Earth Gives Us; The Beggar Is Taxed For A Corner To Die In, The Priest Hath His Fee Who Comes And Shrives Us, We Bargain For The Graves We Lie In; Each Ounce Of Dross Costs Its Ounce Of Gold... 't Is Heaven Alone That Is Given Away, 't Is Only God May Be Had For The Asking; There Is No Price Set On The Lavish Summer, And June May Be Had By The Poorest Comer.

-James Russell Lowell

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Earth Gets Its Price

James Russell Lowell

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Earth Gets Its Price For What Earth Gives Us; The Beggar Is Taxed For A Corner To Die In, The Priest Hath His Fee Who Comes And Shrives Us, We Bargain For The Graves We Lie In; Each Ounce Of Dross Costs Its Ounce Of Gold... 't Is Heaven Alone That Is Given Away, 't Is Only God May Be Had For The Asking; There Is No Price Set On The Lavish Summer, And June May Be Had By The Poorest Comer.

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Talent Is That Which Is In A Man's Power; Genius Is That In Whose Power A Man Is.

But Better Far It Is To Speak One Simple Word, Which Now And Then Shall Waken Their Free Nature In The Weak And Friendless Sons Of Men.

Some Day The Soft Ideal That We Wooed Confronts Us Fiercely, Foe-beset, Pursued, And Cries Reproachful: Was It Then My Praise, And Not Myself Was Loved? Prove Now Thy Truth; I Claim Of Thee The Promise Of Thy Youth.

Praise Follows Truth Afar Off, And Only Overtakes Her At The Grave; Plausibility Clings To Her Skirts And Holds Her Back Till Then

Not But Wut Abstract War Is Horrid, I Sign To Thet With All My Heart, But Civilysation Doos Git Forrid Sometimes, Upon A Powder-cart.

It Is The Vain Endeavor To Make Ourselves What We Are Not That Has Strewn History With So Many Broken Purposes And Lives Left In The Rough.

Tis As Easy To Be Heroes As To Sit The Idle Slaves.

Ah, In This World, Where Every Guiding Thread Ends Suddenly In The One Sure Centre, Death, The Visionary Hand Of Might-have-been Alone Can Fill Desire's Cup To The Brim!

Again, Now, Now, Again Plashes The Rain In Heavy Gouts, The Crinkled Lightning Seems Ever Brightening... And Loud And Long Again The Thunder Shouts His Battle-song, - One Quivering Flash, One Wildering Crash, Followed By Silence Dead And Dull, As If The Cloud, Let Go, Leapt Bodily Below To Whelm The Earth In One Mad Overthrow, And Then A Total Lull.

I Don't Believe In Princerple, But Oh I Du In Interest.

Nature Fits All Her Children With Something To Do, He Who Would Write And Can't Write, Can Surely Review.

No Man, I Suspect, Ever Lived Long In The Country Without Being Bitten By These Meteorological Ambitions. He Likes To Be Hotter And Colder, To Have Been More Deeply Snowed Up, To Have More Trees And Larger Blown Down Than His Neighbors.

Against The Windows The Storm Comes Dashing, Through Tattered Foliage The Hail Tears Crashing, The Blue Lightning Flashes, The Rapid Hail Clashes... The Thunder Is Rumbling And Crashing And Crumbling.

The Right Of Individual Property Is No Doubt The Very Corner-stone Of Civilization, As Hitherto Understood; But I Am A Little Impatient Of Being Told That Property Is Entitled To Exceptional Consideration Because It Bears All The Burdens Of The State. It Bears Those, Indeed, Which Can Be Most Easily Borne, But Poverty Pays With Its Person The Chief Expenses Of War, Pestilence, And Famine.

We Kind O' Thought Christ Went Agin War An' Pillage.

All God's Angels Come To Us Disguised.

An Angel Stood And Met My Gaze, Through The Low Doorway Of My Tent; The Tent Is Struck, The Vision Stays; I Only Know She Came And Went.

A Marciful Providunce Fashioned Us Holler O' Purpose Thet We Might Our Principles Swaller.

Earth's Noblest Thing,-a Woman Perfected.

Pride Of Origin, Whether High Or Low, Springs From The Same Principle In Human Nature; One Is But The Positive, The Other The Negative, Pole Of A Single Weakness.

Virtue Treads Paths That End Not In The Grave.

The Right To Be A Cussed Fool Is Safe From All Devices Human, It's Common (ez A Gin'i Rule) To Every Critter Born Of Woman.

The Only Faith That Wears Well And Holds Its Color In All Weathers Is That Which Is Woven Of Conviction And Set With The Sharp Mordant Of Experience.

The Green Grass Floweth Like A Stream Into The Oceans's Blue.

Better To Me The Poor Mans Crust, Better The Blessing Of The Poor, Though I Turn Me Empty From His Door; That Is No True Alms Which The Hand Can Hold; He Gives Nothing But Worthless Gold Who Gives From A Sense Of Duty; But He Who Gives A Slender Mite, And Gives To That Which Is Out Of Sight, That Thread Of The All-sustaining Beauty Which Runs Through All And Doth All Unite, - The Hand Cannot Clasp The Whole Of His Alms, The Heart Outstretches Its Eager Palms, For A God Goes With It And Makes It Store To The Soul That Was Starving In Darkness Before.

Men Have Their Intellectual Ancestry, And The Likeness Of Some One Of Them Is Forever Unexpectedly Flashing Out In The Features Of A Descendant, It May Be After A Gap Of Several Centuries. In The Parliament Of The Present Every Man Represents A Constituency Of The Past.

It May Be Glorious To Write Thoughts That Shall Glad The Two Or Three High Souls, Like Those Far Stars That Come In Sight Once In A Century.

The Soil Out Of Which Such Men As He Are Made Is Good To Be Born On, Good To Live On, Good To Die For And To Be Buried In.

They Talk About Their Pilgrim Blood, Their Birthright High And Holy! A Mountain-stream That Ends In Mud Thinks Is Melancholy.

All Free Governments, Whatever Their Name, Are In Reality Governments By Public Opinion ; And It Is On The Quality Of This Public Opinion That Their Prosperity Depends. It Is, Therefore, Their First Duty To Purify The Element From Which They Draw The Breath Of Life.

He Who Esteems The Virginia Reel A Bait To Draw Saints From Their Spiritual Weal, And Regards The Quadrille As A Far Greater Knavery Than Crushing His African Children With Slavery, Since All Who Take Part In A Waltz Or Cotillon Are Mounted For Hell On The Devil's Own Pillion, Who, As Every True Orthodox Christian Well Knows, Approaches The Heart Through The Door Of The Toes.

A Weed Is No More Than A Flower In Disguise, Which Is Seen Through At Once, If Love Give A Man Eyes.

It Is Curious How Tyrannical The Habit Of Reading Is, And What Shifts We Make To Escape Thinking. There Is No Bore We Dread Being Left Alone With So Much As Our Own Minds.

It May Be Conjectured That It Is Cheaper In The Long Run To Lift Men Up Than To Hold Them Down, And That The Ballot In Their Hands Is Less Dangerous To Society Than A Sense Of Wrong Is In Their Heads.

It Is The Privilege Of Genius That Life Never Grows Common Place, As It Does For The Rest Of Us.

From Lower To The Higher Next, Not To The Top, Is Nature's Text; And Embryo Good, To Reach Full Stature, Absorbs The Evil In Its Nature.

Better One Bite At Forty, Of Truths Bitter Rind, Than The Hot Wine That Gushed From The Vintage Of Twenty.

Enthusiasm Begets Enthusiasm, Eloquence Produces Conviction For The Moment; But It Is Only By Truth To Nature And The Everlasting Institutions Of Mankind That Those Abiding Influences Are Won That Enlarge From Generation To Generation.

All The Beautiful Sentiments In The World Weigh Less Than A Single Lovely Action.

Ah, Men Do Not Know How Much Strength Is In Poise, That He Goes The Farthest Who Goes Far Enough.

What Visionary Tints The Year Puts On, When Falling Leaves Falter Through Motionless Air Or Numbly Cling And Shiver To Be Gone! How Shimmer The Low Flats And Pastures Bare, As With Her Nectar Hebe Autumn Fills The Bowl Between Me And Those Distant Hills, And Smiles And Shakes Abroad Her Misty, Tremulous Hair!

Every Person Born Into This World Their Work Is Born With Them.

Where Church And State Are Habitually Associated, It Is Natural That Minds, Even Of A High Order, Should Unconsciously Come To Regard Religion As Only A Subtler Mode Of Police.

Now The Heart Is So Full That A Drop Overfills It, We Are Happy Now Because God So Wills It; No Matter How Barren The Past May Have Been, 't Is Enough For Us Now That The Leaves Are Green; We Sit In The Warm Shade And Feel Right Well How The Sap Creeps Up And The Blossoms Swell... The Breeze Comes Whispering In Our Ear, That Dandelions Are Blossoming Near... Every Thing Is Upward Striving; 't Is As Easy Now For The Heart To Be True As For Grass To Be Green Or Skies To Be Blue, - 't Is The Natural Way Of Living.

Truth Forever On The Scaffold, Wrong Forever On The Throne,- Yet That Scaffold Sways The Future, And, Behind The Dim Unknown, Standeth God Within The Shadow, Keeping Watch Above His Own.

The Stiff Rails Were Softened To Swan's-down, And Still Fluttered Down The Snow.

The Better Part Of Every Man's Education Is That Which He Gives Himself.

Here Was A Type Of The True Elder Race, And One Of Plutarch's Men Talked With Us Face To Face.

A Sneer Is The Weapon Of The Weak. Like Other Devil's Weapons, It Is Always Cunningly Ready To Our Hand, And There Is More Poison In The Handle Than In The Point.

Children Are God's Apostles, Sent Forth, Day By Day, To Preach Of Love, And Hope, And Peace.

'tis Sorrow Builds The Shining Ladder Up, Whose Golden Rounds Are Our Calamities, Whereon Our Firm Feet Planting, Nearer God The Spirit Climbs, And Hath Its Eyes Unsealed. True It Is That Death's Face Seems Stern And Cold When He Is Sent To Summon Those We Love; But All God's Angels Come To Us Disguised; Sorrow And Sickness, Poverty And Death, One After Another, Lift Their Frowning Masks, And We Behold The Seraph's Face Beneath, All Radiant With The Glory And The Calm Of Having Looked Upon The Front Of God.

No Man Is Born Into The World Whose Work Is Not Born With Him. There Is Always Work, And Tools To Work With, For Those Who Will, And Blessed Are The Horny Hands Of Toil. The Busy World Shoves Angrily Aside The Man Who Stands With Arms Akimbo Until Occasion Tells Him What To Do; And He Who Waits To Have His Task Marked Out Shall Die And Leave His Errand Unfulfilled.

There Is Nothing So Desperately Monotonous As The Sea, And I No Longer Wonder At The Cruelty Of Pirates.

Earth's Biggest Country 's Gut Her Soul, An' Risen Up Earth's Greatest Nation.

Though Old The Thought And Oft Exprest, Tis His At Last Who Says It Best.

Poetry Is Something To Make Us Wiser And Better, By Continually Revealing Those Types Of Beauty And Truth, Which God Has Set In All Men's Souls.

In The Earliest Ages Science Was Poetry, As In The Later Poetry Has Become Science.

The Question Of Common Sense Is Always: 'what Is It Good For?' - A Question Which Would Abolish The Rose And Be Answered Triumphantly By The Cabbage.

A Wise Skepticism Is The First Attribute Of A Good Critic.

And What Is So Rare As A Day In June? Then, If Ever, Come Perfect Days.

Piety Is Indifferent Whether She Enters At The Eye Or At The Ear. There Is None Of The Senses At Which She Does Not Knock One Day Or Other. The Puritans Forgot This, And Thrust Beauty Out Of The Meeting-house And Slammed The Door In Her Face.

There Is Surely Room For Yet Another Schoolmaster When A Score Of Seers Advertise Themselves In Boston Newspapers.

Tyranny Is Always Weakness

The Don Quixote Of One Generation May Live To Hear Himself Called The Savior Of Society By The Next.

Many-sidedness Of Culture Makes Our Vision Clearer And Keener In Particulars.

A Profound Common Sense Is The Best Genius For Statesmanship.

If We See Light At The End Of The Tunnel, It's The Light Of The Oncoming Train.

Beauty Hath No True Glass, Except It Be In The Sweet Privacy Of Loving Eyes.

It Is By Presence Of Mind In Untried Emergencies That The Native Metal Of Man Is Tested.

Presence Of Mind

Analysis Is Carried Into Everything. Even Deity Is Subjected To Chemical Tests.

For Humanity Sweeps Onward: Where Today The Martyr Stands, On The Morrow Crouches Judas With The Silver In His Hands; Far In Front The Cross Stands Ready And The Crackling Fagots Burn, While The Hooting Mob Of Yesterday In Silent Awe Return To Glean Up The Scattered Ashes Into History's Golden Urn.

In The Parliament Of The Present Every Man Represents A Constituency Of The Past.

No Man Can Produce Great Things Who Is Not Thoroughly Sincere In Dealing With Himself.

Who's Not Sat Tense Before His Own Heart's Curtain.

Dear Common Flower, That Grow'st Beside The Way, Fringing The Dusty Road With Harmless Gold, First Pledge Of Blithesome May, Which Children Pluck, And, Full Of Pride Uphold.

A Nature Wise With Finding In Itself The Types Of All, With Watching From The Dim Verge Of The Time What Things To Be Are Visible In The Gleams Thrown Forward On Them From The Luminous Past, Wise With The History Of Its Own Frail Heart, With Reverence And Sorrow, And With Love, Broad As The World, For Freedom And For Man.

There Is A Law Of Neutralization Of Forces, Which Hinders Bodies From Sinking Beyond A Certain Depth In The Sea; But In The Ocean Of Baseness, The Deeper We Get, The Easier The Sinking.

The Secret Of Force In Writing Lies Not So Much In The Pedigree Of Nouns And Adjectives And Verbs, As In Having Something That You Believe In To Say, And Making The Parts Of Speech Vividly Conscious Of It.

The Flowers Or Weeds That Spring Up Tomorrow Are In The Seeds We Sow Today. The Foolish And The Dead Alone Never Change Their Opinions.

The First Lesson Of Life Is To Burn Our Own Smoke; That Is, Not To Inflict On Outsiders Our Personal Sorrows And Petty Morbidness, Not To Keep Thinking Of Ourselves As Exceptional Cases.

Not Failure, But Low Aim, Is Crime.

What A Man Pays For Bread And Butter Is Worth Its Market Value, And No More. What He Pays For Love's Sake Is Gold Indeed, Which Has A Lure For Angels' Eyes, And Rings Well Upon God's Touchstone.

It Seems To Me That The Bane Of Our Country Is A Profession Of Faith Either With No Basis Of Real Belief, Or With No Proper Examination Of The Grounds On Which The Creed Is Supposed To Rest.

Get But The Truth Once Uttered, And 'tis Like A Star New-born That Drops Into Its Place And Which, Once Circling In Its Placid Round, Not All The Tumult Of The Earth Can Shake.

The Foolish And The Dead Alone Never Change Their Opinions.

It Is The Rooted Instinct In Men To Admire What Is Better And More Beautiful Than Themselves.

Greatly Begin. Though Thou Have Time, But For A Line, Be That Sublime. Not Failure, But Low Aim Is Crime.

It Is Not The Insurrections Of Ignorance That Are Dangerous, But The Revolts Of The Intelligence.

New Conditions Of Life Will Stimulate Thought And Give New Forms To Its Expression.

O Reputation! Dearer Far Than Life.

Endurance Is The Crowning Quality.

Behind The Dim Unknown, Standeth God With The Shadow, Keeping Watch Above His Own.

Breaking Silence

Fools, When Their Roof-tree Falls, Think It Doomsday.

They Are Slaves Who Fear To Speak For The Fallen And The Weak; They Are Slaves Who Will Not Choose Hatred, Scoffing, And Abuse, Rather Than In Silence Shrink From The Truth They Needs Must Think; They Are Slaves Who Dare Not Be In The Right With Two Or Three.

A Poet Must Need Be Before His Own Age, To Be Even With Posterity

Be He Nowhere Else, God Is In All That Liberates And Lifts, In All That Humbles, Sweetens, And Consoles.

How Little Inventiveness There Is In Man, Grave Copier Of Copies.

Fate Loves The Fearless.

Toward No Crimes Have Men Shown Themselves So Cold- Bloodedly Cruel As In Punishing Differences Of Belief.

In All Literary History There Is No Such Figure As Dante, No Such Homogeneousness Of Life And Works, Such Loyalty To Ideas, Such Sublime Irrecognition Of The Unessential.

The Snow Had Begun In The Gloaming, And Busily All The Night Had Been Heaping Field And Highway With A Silence Deep And White.

Joy Comes, Grief Goes, We Know Not How.

For Men In Earnest Have No Time To Waste In Patching Fig-leaves For The Naked Truth.

The Traitor To Humanity Is The Traitor Most Accurst.

The Brain Can Be Easy To Buy, But The Heart Never Comes To Market.

Who Speaks The Truth Stabs Falsehood To The Heart.

Sentiment Is Intellectualized Emotion; Emotion Precipitated, As It Were, In Pretty Crystals By The Fancy.

Time Is, After All, The Greatest Of Poets; And The Sons Of Memory Stand A Better Chance Of Being The Heirs Of Fame.

Stern Men With Empires In Their Brains.

It Is Only The Intellect That Can Be Thoroughly And Hideously Wicked. It Can Forget Everything In The Attainment Of Its Ends. The Heart Recoils; In Its Retired Some Drops Of Childhood's Dew Still Linger, Defying Manhood's Fiery Noon.

Forget Everything

A Wise Man Travels To Discover Himself.

Not A Deed Would He Do, Not A Word Would He Utter, Till He's Weighed Its Relation To Plain Bread And Butter.

A Great Man Is Made Up Of Qualities That Meet Or Make Great Occasions.

Faith In God, Faith In Man, Faith In Work: This Is The Short Formula In Which We May Sum Up The Teachings Of The Founders Of New England,--a Creed Ample Enough For This Life And The Next.

Folks Never Understand The Folks They Hate.

My Gran'ther's Rule Was Safer 'n 't Is To Crow: Don't Never Prophesy - Onless Ye Know.

The Wisest Man Could Ask No More Of Fate Than To Be Simple, Modest, Manly, True, Safe From The Many, Honored By The Few; Nothing To Court In Church, Or World, Or State, But Inwardly In Secret To Be Great.

Life Is The Jailer, Death The Angel Sent To Draw The Unwilling Bolts And Set Us Free.

No Mud Can Soil Us But The Mud We Throw.

Endurance Is The Crowning Quality, And Patience All The Passion Of Great Hearts.

Communism Means Barbarism.

No Price Is Set On The Lavish Summer; June May Be Had By The Poorest Comer.

For Only By Unlearning Wisdom Comes.

All That Hath Been Majestical In Life Or Death, Since Time Began, Is Native In The Simple Heart Of All, The Angel Heat Of Man.

It Is Beginning To Be Doubtful Whether Parliament And Congress Sit In Westminster And Washington, Or In The Editorial Rooms Of The Leading Journals,--so Thoroughly Is Everything Debated Before The Authorized And Responsible Debaters Get On Their Legs.

Violet! Sweet Violet! Thine Eyes Are Full Of Tears; Are They Wet Even Yet With The Thought Of Other Years?

Laborin' Man An' Laborin' Woman Hev One Glory An' One Shame; Ev'y Thin' Thet' S Done Inhuman Injers All On 'em The Same.

So We're All Right, An' I, For One, Don't Think Our Cause'll Lose In Vally By Rammin' Scriptur' In Our Gun, An' Gittin' Natur' For An Ally.

It Is Not A Great Xerxes Army Of Words, But A Compact Greek Ten Thousand That March Safely Down To Posterity.

He Who Is Firmly Seated In Authority Soon Learns To Think Security, And Not Progress, The Highest Lesson In Statecraft.

Not A Change For The Better In Our Human Housekeeping Has Ever Taken Place That Wise And Good Men Have Not Opposed It-have Not Prophesied That The World Would Wake Up To Find Its Throat Cut In Consequence.

Good Luck Is The Willing Handmaid Of Upright, Energetic Character, And Conscientious Observance Of Duty.

Comparative Criticism Teaches Us That Moral And Aesthetic Defects Are More Nearly Related Than Is Commonly Supposed.

To Have Greatly Dreamed Precludes Low Ends.

In Life's Small Things Be Resolute And Great To Keep Thy Muscle Trained; Know'st Thou When Fate Thy Measure Takes, Or When She'll Say To Thee, "i Find Thee Worthy; Do This Deed For Me?"

To Make The Common Marvelous Is The Test Of Genius.

Puritanism, Believing Itself Quick With The Seed Of Religious Liberty, Laid, Without Knowing It, The Egg Of Democracy.

The Nurse Of Full-grown Souls Is Solitude.

Have You Ever Rightly Considered What The Mere Ability To Read Means? That It Is The Key Which Admits Us To The Whole World Of Thought And Fancy And Imagination? To The Company Of Saint And Sage, Of The Wisest And The Wittiest At Their Wisest And Wittiest Moment? That It Enables Us To See With The Keenest Eyes, Hear With The Finest Ears, And Listen To The Sweetest Voices Of All Time? More Than That, It Annihilates Time And Space For Us.

Idleness Induces Caprice.

He Who Keeps His Faith Only, Cannot Be Discrowned.

True Freedom Is To Share All The Chains Our Brothers Wear, And, With Heart And Hand, To Be Earnest To Make Others Free!

The Greater Your Real Strength And Power, The Quieter It Will Be Exercised.

Reputation Is Only A Candle, Of Wavering And Uncertain Flame, And Easily Blown Out, But It Is The Light By Which The World Looks For And Finds Merit.

With Every Step Of The Recent Traveler Our Inheritance Of The Wonderful Is Diminished. Those Beautiful Pictured Notes Of The Possible Are Redeemed At A Ruinous Discount In The Hard Coin Of The Actual.

True Love Is But A Humble, Low Born Thing, And Hath Its Food Served Up In Earthenware; It Is A Thing To Walk With, Hand In Hand, Through The Every-dayness Of This Workday World.

Like Streams That Keep A Summer Mind Snow-hid In Jenooary.

The Victory's In Believing.

Aspiration Sees Only One Side Of Every Question; Possession Many.

Democracy Is That Form Of Society, No Matter What Its Political Classification, In Which Every Man Has A Chance And Knows That He Has It.

Take Winter As You Find Him, And He Turns Out To Be A Thoroughly Honest Fellow; With No Nonsense In Him, Which Is A Great Comfort In The Long-run.

History Is Clarified Experience.

I Love Her With A Love As Still As A Broad River's Peaceful Might, Which By High Tower And Lowly Mill, Goes Wandering At Its Own Will, And Yet Does Ever Flow Aright.

All Thoughts That Mold The Age Begin Deep Down Within The Primitive Soul.

For There's Nothing We Read Of In Torture's Inventions, Like A Well-meaning Dunce, With The Best Of Intentions.

Suddenly All The Sky Is Hid As With The Shutting Of A Lid, One By One Great Drops Are Falling Doubtful And Slow, Down The Pane They Are Crookedly Crawling, And The Wind Breathes Low; Slowly The Circles Widen On The River, Widen And Mingle, One And All; Here And There The Slenderer Flowers Shiver, Struck By An Icy Rain-drop’s Fall.

Nature, They Say, Doth Dote, And Cannot Make A Man Save On Some Worn-out Plan, Repeating Us By Rote.

Truly There Is A Tide In The Affairs Of Men; But There Is No Gulf-stream Setting Forever In One Direction.

A Weed Is No More Than A Flower In Disguise.

One Thorn Of Experience Is Worth A Whole Wilderness Of Warning.

Two Meanings Have Our Lightest Fantasies,- One Of The Flesh, And Of The Spirit One.

Certainly It Is No Shame To A Man That He Should Be As Nice About His Country As His Sweetheart, Yet It Would Not Be Wise To Hold Everyone An Enemy Who Could Not See Her With Our Own Enchanted Eyes.

Whenever You Have The Kind Of Market That Is Taking Shape Now - A Wildly Volatile One With Big Pricing Discrepancies - It Plays Right Into The Hands Of Managers Who Are Very Focused On Research And Stock Picking.

There Is Something Solid And Doughty In The Man That Can Rise From Defeat, The Stuff Of Which Victories Are Made In Due Time, When We Are Able To Choose Our Position Better, And The Sun Is At Our Back.

The Thing We Long For, That We Are For One Transcendent Moment.

Once To Every Man And Nation, Comes The Moment To Decide, In The Strife Of Truth With Falsehood, For The Good Or Evil Side; Some Great Cause, Some Great Decision, Offering Each The Bloom Or Blight, And The Choice Goes By Forever, ’twixt That Darkness And That Light.

Over Our Manhood Bend The Skies; Against Our Fallen And Traitor Lives The Great Winds Utter Prophecies; With Our Faint Hearts The Mountain Strives, Its Arms Outstretched, The Druid Wood Waits With Its Benedicite And To Our Ages Drowsy Blood Still Shouts The Inspiring Sea.

Most Men Make The Voyage Of Life As If They Carried Sealed Orders Which They Were Not To Open Till They Were Fairly In Mid-ocean.

Truth, After All, Wears A Different Face To Everybody, And It Would Be Too Tedious To Wait Till All Were Agreed. She Is Said To Lie At The Bottom Of A Well, For The Very Reason, Perhaps, That Whoever Looks Down In Search Of Her Sees His Own Image At The Bottom, And Is Persuaded Not Only That He Has Seen The Goddess, But That She Is Far Better Looking Than He Had Imagined.

Different Faces

Men's Thoughts And Opinions Are In A Great Degree Vassals Of Him Who Invents A New Phrase Or Re-applies An Old Epithet. The Thought Or Feeling A Thousand Times Repeated Becomes His At Last Who Utters It Best.

Imagination, Where It Is Truly Creative, Is A Faculty, And Not A Quality; It Looks Before And After, It Gives The Form That Makes All The Parts Work Together Harmoniously Toward A Given End, Its Seat Is In The Higher Reason, And It Is Efficient Only As A Servant Of The Will. Imagination, As It Is Too Often Misunderstood, Is Mere Fantasy, The Image-making Power, Common To All Who Have The Gift Of Dreams.

Heaven Is Neither Here Nor There To Me. Everywhere And Nowhere. Just Not In Between, But I Believe In Heaven.

The Riches Of Scholarship, The Benignities Of Literature, Defy Fortune And Outlive Calamity. They Are Beyond The Reach Of Thief Or Moth Or Rust. As They Cannot Be Inherited, So They Cannot, Be Alienated.

New Occasions Teach New Duties, Time Makes Ancient Good Uncouth; They Must Upward Still And Onward, Who Would Keep Abreast Of Truth.

Onward And Upward

A Sneer Is The Weapon Of The Weak.

Most Religion-mongers Have Bated Their Paradises With A Bit Of Toasted Cheese. They Have Tempted The Body With Large Promises Of Possessions In Their Transmortal El Dorado. Sancho Panza Will Not Quit His Chimney-corner, But Under Promise Of Imaginary Islands To Govern.

Men! Whose Boast It Is That Ye Come Of Fathers Brave And Free, If There Breathe On Earth A Slave, Are Ye Truly Free And Brave?

Silence Is Sorrow's Best Food.

't Is Heaven Alone That Is Given Away; 't Is Only God May Be Had For The Asking.

No Sincere Desire Of Doing Good Need Make An Enemy Of A Single Human Being; That Philanthropy Has Surely A Flaw In It Which Cannot Sympathize With The Oppressor Equally As With The Oppressed.

Truth Only Needs To Be For Once Spoken Out; And There's Such Music In Her, Such Strange Rhythm, As Makes Men's Memories Her Joyous Slaves.

The Time Is Ripe, And Rotten-ripe, For Change... [truth's] Mirror Is Turned Forward, To Reflect The Promise Of The Future, Not The Past.

The Realm Of Death Seems An Enemy's Country To Most Men, On Whose Shores They Are Loathly Driven By Stress Of Weather; To The Wise Man It Is The Desired Port Where He Moors His Bark Gladly, As In Some Quiet Haven Of The Fortunate Isles; It Is The Golden West Into Which His Sun Sinks, And, Sinking, Casts Back A Glory Upon The Leaden Cloud-tack Which Had Darkly Besieged His Day.

Hush! Still As Death, The Tempest Holds His Breath As From A Sudden Will; The Rain Stops Short, But From The Eaves You See It Drop, And Hear It From The Leaves, All Is So Bodingly Still.

Truth Always Has A Bewitching Savor Of Newness In It, And Novelty At The First Taste Recalls That Original Sweetness To The Tongue; But Alas For Him Who Would Make The One A Substitute For The Other.

Light Is The Symbol Of Truth.

Spiritual Healing

I Who Still Pray At Morning And At Eve Thrice In My Life Perhaps Have Truly Prayed, Thrice Stirred Below Conscious Self Have Felt That Perfect Disenthrallment Which Is God.

Not As All Other Women Are Is She That To My Soul Is Dear; Her Glorious Fancies Come From Far, Beneath The Silver Evening Star, And Yet Her Heart Is Ever Near.

An Appeal To The Reason Of The People Has Never Been Known To Fail In The Long Run.

Those Who Know The Truth Are Not Equal To Those Who Love It Confucius All Truth Is Safe And Nothing Else Is Safe, But He Who Keeps Back Truth, Or Withholds It From Men, From Motives Of Expediency, Is Either A Coward Or A Criminal.

He Gives Only The Worthless Gold Who Gives From A Sense Of Duty.

To Educate The Intelligence Is To Expand The Horizon Of Its Wants And Desires.

If One Waits For The Right Time To Come Before Writing, The Right Time Never Comes.

God Does Not Weigh Criminality In Our Scales. We Have One Absolute, With The Seal Of Authority Upon It; And With Us An Ounce Is An Ounce, And A Pound A Pound. God's Measure Is The Heart Of The Offender,--a Balance Which Varies With Every One Of Us, A Balance So Delicate That A Tear Cast In The Other Side May Make The Weight Of Error Kick The Beam.

And The Choice Goes By Forever 'twixt That Darkness And That Light.

Whatever You May Be Sure Of, Be Sure Of This, That You Are Dreadfully Like Other People.

And I Honor The Man Who Is Willing To Sink Half His Present Repute For The Freedom To Think, And, When He Has Thought, Be His Cause Strong Or Weak, Will Risk T' Other Half For The Freedom To Speak.

Some Kind Of Pace May Be Got Out Of The Eeriest Jade By The Near Prospect Of Oats; But The Thoroughbred Has The Spur In His Blood.

The Idol Is The Measure Of The Worshipper.

Mishaps Are Like Knives, That Either Serve Us Or Cut Us, As We Grasp Them By The Blade Or The Handle.

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